End of the Line
by BrenRenQoI
Summary: Season Nine Finale Ficisode: Clark finally agrees that it's time to be completely open and honest with Lois. So naturally, life, the universe, and everything conspire to make that as difficult as possible, until they're trapped with no way out... but up!
1. Chapter 1

End of the Line

By Bren Ren

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Author's note: These Smallville PlotBunnies just couldn't be contained, so… Here I am dabbling, or more accurately, drabbling in a Smallville Lois & Clark fic. This is a one-shot fic of a single scene—this is basically how I'd like to seem them play out the finale for this season—with the assumption of their being a season ten, the premiere for which would kick-off right where this little ficlet leaves off. And yes, I do intend to write that teaser/conclusion ficlet as well.

And we're fic-ing!

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They had two flights of stairs to go. Just twenty-four steps remained between them and the roof access door when the explosion at the bottom of the stairwell nearly knocked them off their feet. The power of the roaring shockwave ripped through them seconds ahead of the rising fireball that engulfed every inch of the corridor in its path.

"Come on!" Clark screamed over the blast. As they continued their desperate climb, he pulled Lois up in his arms and took the last few steps three at a time. They burst through the door and had just enough time to duck behind a large ventilation port as the flames erupted from the stairwell.

As the fireball tapered back, they rose from behind their shelter and scanned the rooftop. Flames from the floors beneath them were shooting high into the night sky around the entire building; gossamer tendrils of flame curled up around the ledges as if the inferno was cradling the rooftop.

"We're trapped!" Lois's eyes were bulging with fear and panic. Then the entire building began to tremble beneath their feet.

Clark held his hand out to Lois. "Do you trust me?"

She took his hand in hers and stepped closer. "It isn't my trust that's in question."

The trembling intensified with every passing second. "It's time I answered your question, then." As her eyes grew impossibly wider, Clark dipped his head down to capture her lips in a firm kiss. The building suddenly began to quake violently; it was collapsing under them. He wrapped his arms tightly around Lois as he broke off the kiss.

"Hope you're not afraid of heights," Clark quipped with a wink. And then they shot straight up into the air as the roof crumbled beneath, releasing a fireball that missed them by microseconds.

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{Fade to Black}

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	2. Prologue

End of the Line: Prologue

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Author's note: I'm taking the Indiana Jones approach to telling this tale, apparently. I had intended to simply write a follow-up scene that would be my take on the next season premier teaser, picking up where I left off in that finale scene in the first part of this story written. The muse had other ideas. So, just as Temple of Doom was a prequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark, I began this story in the middle with the finale scene, and have now jumped back in time for this prologue-prequel scene, which, for clarification's sake, would be, in my strange little shippy world, the opening teaser for the season nine finale. So... now that we have the pesky chronology out of the way, on with the show!

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Prologue

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Lois Lane was sitting on a park bench watching the soft breeze rustle the petals of the flowers in the garden across the trail when a large pair of warm hand slid over her eyes, completely obstructing her vision.

Then she felt the humid warmth of breath tickling her ear as a soft voice murmured, "Guess who."

One arched brow grazed his fingers as it crept up her forehead whilst her lips quirked up at one corner. In a voice laden with impish mischief, she answered, "A strange visitor from another planet come to whisk me away from this world full of morons."

The hands slid away from her eyes, and it took several blinks to clear her vision as Clark came round from behind the bench. One hand lingered on her shoulder as he sat down beside her.

"Not exactly," he replied with a strangely knowing grin. One she had become far too familiar with of late. "I got your note. Any particular reason you wanted to meet in the park?"

"Well, for one thing, the weather is far too gorgeous to spend the whole day cooped up in the Planet's basement." Lois paused for a moment before turning to face Clark dead on. With one quick gulp of air and a hard swallow of her resolve, she continued. "For another, I wanted some… neutral ground. But mostly… I wanted you to know that... this isn't a confrontation. That's not what this is about."

Clark met her gaze with a curious, critical stare. "What is this about, Lois?" he asked softly.

"It's about us," Lois answered softly. She sucked in a slightly shaky breath and let it out in something of a harsh chuckle. "Look, you know I suck at all this touchy-feely emotional stuff, so just… just bear with me, okay?" She waited to continue until Clark gave her an encouraging smile with a nod of his head. "You and me... we've known each other a long time. We had a slow, rocky start, but now... We've been growing so close over the last few months, and the truth is, I've never let myself get this close to anyone before. The ones I don't drive away, I push away. But you… you just kept coming back. Before I even knew it was happening, you became one of the closest friends I've ever had. And now… now we're even closer. Really, really close. And yet, even after all this time, after everything we've been through together... you're still holding back from me. And that hurts, Clark. It really, really hurts,"

Clark's eyes were haunted with remorse. "I'm sorry, Lois," he said, his voice low. "I am so sorry."

"I fought so hard to keep from falling in love with you… I think I always knew that if I did and it didn't work out, if I lost you… I'd lose a part of myself, too." Lois closed her eyes as her imagination supplied a vivid impression of just how painful the very idea of it was. After a few beats, she raised her eyelids to meet Clark's eyes once again. His dark expression clearly implied he'd shared a similar mental image from her provocative words. "You can't keep shutting me out, Clark. If you want this to work… If you really want to be involved in this relationship with me, if you really want to be with me, you have to let me in. All the way in." She wasn't quite sure how she had managed to maintain her composure thus far, but she was grateful that she had.

"You're right," Clark answered on a sigh of resignation. "I do want this to work, Lois. You know that I want to be with you."

"What more do I have to do to earn your trust, Clark?" Her voice held only the tiniest hint of desperation. "Just tell me. You know there's nothing I wouldn't do for you."

"Nothing," he answered with quiet resolve.

"Nothing?" This time all that came out was a whisper of a plea. The distinct sheen of unshed tears in her eyes sparkled in the bright sunlight.

"You have my trust, Lois." Clark's answer startled her, making her blink hard, which naturally had the effect of squeezing those tears out. They slowly trickled unheeded down her cheeks as Clark continued. "You earned that a long time ago. It's not a lack of trust that's held me back…" As he paused, remorse again crept up into his eyes, mixed with an unmistakable element of shame. "It's my own fears."

She tilted her head to one side and looked at him as though she was seeing him clearly for the first time. "If you're afraid my feelings for you might change, you should know that there's not a force in the universe powerful enough to do that."

Clark smiled ever so slightly. "That's only part of it," he answered after a while.

Lois returned his earlier curious and critical stare for a moment. "Then what, Clark? What is it that you're so afraid of?"

Clark closed his eyes for a pensive moment. When at last he opened them again, she couldn't mistake the anguish lurking there. "Everyone who has ever gotten really close to me has been hurt because of it. Each and every single person. It's even cost some their lives, and the thought of that happening to you terrifies me. There's nothing I wouldn't do to protect you from being hurt, because if I ever lost you, I know I would lose part of myself."

"I know I hide it well beneath my enlightened-modern-woman guise, but I really do love that protective streak of yours," she confessed in a conspiratorial whisper. "But even you can't protect me from everything," she continued in a relatively normal tone. "Nor can you protect me all the time. And I am a big girl now, you know. I'm pretty darn good at taking care of myself. Besides that, I've got something of a knack for getting myself into trouble, but what's more, I'm usually pretty capable of getting myself out, too. I'm not exactly the dainty damsel in distress type."

"I know." Clark acknowledged with a crooked grin. "Believe me, I know that well."

"We're good together," Lois resumed after a beat. "We could be great together. Maybe even make history together. But that can only happen if you have as much faith in me as I have in you. I haven't pressured you; I'm not confronting you, nor will I. I've been living on my faith in you, trusting you to share yourself with me completely in your own time." Lois paused and reached out to take one of his hands in hers. When she continued, her voice betrayed just how tenuous her composure was at this point. "But I don't know how much longer we can survive this way—so close in some ways and worlds apart in others. If you can't meet me half-way in bridging that gap, it will tear us apart eventually."

Clark squeezed her hand, then wrapped his other hand around their entwined fingers and lifted her hands to his lips for a tender caress. "I am not going to let that happen," he told her gravely.

Her hands trembled in his as she took one long, slow, deep breath. "Then… are you ready to let me in? To really let me in?"

Clark held his pensive expression just half a heartbeat shy of driving Lois completely out of her mind. "All in," he answered at last. He moved toward her to seal the deal with a kiss when, naturally, all hell broke loose as the federal building across from the park exploded with a roar that ripped through the city and a fireball that engulfed both buildings on either side of ground zero.

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{Somebody *SAVE* Me!}

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	3. Act One: Holding Nothing Back

End of the Line

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Act One: Holding Nothing Back

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{Yadda, yadda, Zod is Eeeevil, Cue First Act Epiphany}

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Lois closed the file folder on the police activities log with a bit more force than necessary and regarded Clark sitting on the other side of their desks. "So the unscheduled demolition of the federal building was just a distraction?"

"And they just got lost in the chaos and slipped through the stampede." Clark's face darkened dramatically as he quickly processed the cataclysmic ramifications of this new development.

"And if that stolen shipment reaches its destination—

"All that will be left of Metropolis will be one gigantic crater," Clark interjected.

"Now who's finishing the other's thoughts?" Lois sniped teasingly. She sobered up an instant later and continued. "We have to warn people."

"We don't have any proof, Lois." His mind was running ninety light-years a second in as many different directions, but he still considered his words carefully. He'd learned a lot over the years he'd known her; he'd developed a great many ways to help her channel her furious energy and drive for justice. He knew when to challenge her, when to provoke her, and when to give her firm but gentle guidance and assistance. "No one's going to buy this story unless we can find more than just ambiguous circumstantial evidence, theories, and conjecture."

When Lois replied after momentary consideration, her voice was a little too cool and composed, tolling the alarm bells in Clark's mind. "Because unlike the faith of the human heart, the justice system demands real, tangible proof to convict or redeem the accused."

"We're not talking about them anymore, are we?" The dropped inflection of his voice rendered that more statement than question.

They locked horns for a due-any-moment-pregnant-pause before Lois finally snapped her eyes shut. "Not entirely," she admitted beneath her breath. She slowly raised wary eyes to look into Clark's for a few soul-baring seconds before her face hardened with professional coolness once again. "But this isn't the place, and it sure as hell isn't the time to get into that, what with Metropolis on the brink of going the way of Sodom and Gomorrah." Her less than gentle rant came to a crashing halt when a wildly gesticulating hand crashed into her coffee cup.

Before she could begin to react, before she even had time to blink, Clark was suddenly standing beside her, her coffee cup in his outstretched hand.

"What the…?" Her eyes darted back and forth between Clark and the mug for several passes, her pupils widely dilated and filled with shock—and awe. "How did… Did you just do what I think you just did?"

Clark smirked as he set the cup on the desk in front of her. He leaned down low enough to tease her ear with his soft breath. "Quick reflexes," he whispered, winking at her as he stood back up.

Lois was just coming back from her lost-in-wonder trip, her mouth opening slightly to speak, when the Murphy's Law of bad timing reared its ugly head and Clark cell phone began ringing. He pulled it out and glanced at the caller ID. Chloe. Naturally.

He shot Lois an apologetic glance as he answered the call. Unsurprisingly, Lois resumed her lost-in-wonder trip as Clark listened to the update from her cousin.

{Insert more A-plot gotta-save-the-world-so-the-romance-has-to-wait scenes…}

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	4. Act Two: Miised it by THAT much!

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Act Two: Missed It By *THAT* Much!

Friday, 2:40 p.m.

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"It's a good thing I busted myself out of there before you could storm the castle, Sir Galahad." The words came from Lois haltingly; she hadn't begun to recover from their mad race to escape after their interception attempt failed spectacularly. "The only reason they took me was to bait the Blur."

Clark winced hard. "This is exactly why it took me so long to tell you everything. The last thing I want is to make you a target."

"I've done just fine making myself a target, thank you very much." Lois's eyes flared with indignation. "And this latest escapade should prove that I'm equally adept at getting myself out of trouble. We've been convicted of guilt by association for long time, in spite of your painstaking efforts to keep me out of the loop. So forgive me if I call BS on that excuse."

His eyes contorted in pain as he formulated a response. "We were convicted when you ambushed that press conference a few months ago to tell the world you know the Blur."

"Someone had to stand up for him," she retorted hotly. "I didn't think there was anyone else in this world who understands who he is, and what he means to the world he has so unconditionally protected. And if there's anyone else who knows all that, they obviously weren't stepping up to the plate to go to bat for him."

"But in doing so," Clark replied forebodingly, "you made yourself a target for anyone and everyone intent on eliminating the Blur."

"*I* made myself a target. And if they'd caught you running here to my rescue, their plan would have at the very least confirmed that associative theory," Lois countered. "If you can't learn to let go of that little phobia of yours, you're just setting yourself up for a disastrous self-fulfilling prophecy."

His eyes narrowed. "Am I supposed to do nothing when I know you're in mortal peril?"

"That not what I'm saying, and you know it," Lois huffed. "All I'm saying is you might want to be a little more careful running to the rescue. We just have to avoid presenting to the world a connection between Lois Lane and the Blur. Or else, this is just going to keep happening." Lois broke off abruptly. "We don't have time to deal with this right now." Her tone had suddenly become icy cold as she resumed her role as the consummately cool professional. "Those creeps got away, and if we have to find that device and destroy it before they finish assembling all those components and hit the kill switch."

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	5. Act Three: Too Close for Comfort

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Author's Note: This story's journey is as strange for me as it has apparently been for my kind readers… The scenes just aren't flowing in a traditionally linear sequence. Thank goodness it's all really starting to come together now!

Thank you all for joining me on the ride! Ready for the next twisting curve? Up, up, and away! :P

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Act Three: Too Close for Comfort, And Not a Moment to Spare

Friday 4:20 p.m.

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{Skip, skip, skip the A-plot! On with the ship we go!}

The elevator car jolted abruptly, sending Lois crashing into Clark. Then gravity forcefully reasserted its presence and the lift began to plunge—fast. Lois flashed panicked eyes at Clark. He looked upward to the ceiling of the plummeting death trap for a split second, then back to Lois. She met his eyes with an even stare, gave him a quick nod and half a smile before wrapping her arms tight around him and burying her face against his chest.

Clark jumped up through the light fixture, tearing through all the plastic and glass and metal as though it were rice paper and landing on top of the free-falling elevator lift. They were more than half way down the hundred-plus story shaft and the bottom of the shaft pulled them more greedily with every passing micros-second. And then they stopped. She felt the moment the lift lost contact with their feet as it continued to plunge down to its inevitable demolition. They came to a quick smooth halt somewhere in the dim shaft just as the shockwaves of energy and sound from the crash ripped up through them.

Lois slowly lifted her head to assess their situation. Through the low emergency lighting, she saw that Clark was holding her suspended with one arm; his other arm was latched onto an access ladder, and his feet were balanced between a rung of the ladder and the ledge of a doorway on a level that was roughly a third of the way up the building from the ground floor.

"That was close," Lois finally said as she brought her head back up to meet Clark eye to eye.

For a moment, just the briefest split second in time, she gave Clark exactly what she had asked of him. She held nothing back.

It was one of those rare, perfect life-moments that are never forgotten, preserved in crystal clear detail for all time. Everything she was thinking and feeling exploded from her eyes and into Clark's in a cosmic burst of emotions that was as phenomenal as it was brief.

Clark smiled, slowly, but intently. His gaze never wavered, didn't even flicker the slightest. As the beating of their hearts slowly synchronized their rhythm, Clark's eyes opened before her, and finally—finally!—he held absolutely nothing back as he fully acknowledged every last profound ramification of the experience they had just shared.

They had precious little time to savor the moment, though. Lois's lips quirked in a wry smile, her brows arched sharply as she glanced down at the devastation beneath them. "We're gonna have fun explaining that miraculous little escape."

As she returned her focus to Clark, he gave her an answering smirk. "I'm sure we'll figure out something." She shook her head softly, a light chuckle slipping past her lips before she pressed them to his. "Grab the ladder," he told her after she pulled back. She did so and Clark unwrapped his arm from her waist to single-handedly force the elevator doors open. Lois climbed over him, treating him to a saucy wink as she pressed her body firmly into his while she moved to the safety of the landing.

Clark groaned as he swung himself onto the landing behind Lois. He wrapped his arms around her and lowered his head to her ear. "You are determined to drive me completely out of my mind, aren't you?" His voice literally came out a low growl.

Lois shivered once before breaking from his embrace. "Turn about's fair play," she retorted. She kept one hand entwined with his as she began to pull him with her in a break-neck march down the corridor. "So, just for the record," Lois tossed over her shoulder as they approached the door to the stairwell, "how did we escape?"

Clark pushed the door open from behind her and they quickly slipped inside. Then Clark began unbuttoning his dress shirt.

Lois gaped. "Seriously, as much as I'd otherwise love your full frontal exposure, what does your shirt have to do with how we…" She faltered completely when Clark pulled his shirt open to reveal not bare flesh, but a black t-shirt—one with a very familiar symbol front and center. "...escaped," she finished in a breathy whisper. Clark promptly tore off the front of the shirt and handed the crest to Lois.

"That should answer anyone's questions." He stared down at her with a soft smile she couldn't quite tear her eyes from the symbol to see.

Lois stared at that symbolic physical evidence in her hand for a long quiet moment. "Yeah. That ought to do the trick," she finally said, still mesmerized by the torn fabric in her grasp.

"Think it's real and tangible enough?" Clark asked gently. He reached out and softly guided her head back up.

When their eyes met, she simply smiled for several heartbeats, freely giving him her open love and appreciation. "Thank you," she finally said aloud. She stretched up on her toes to gift him with a soft, brief kiss. Of course, she had to place her hands on his now-partially bare chest for balance, and couldn't quite resist trailing her hands across his taut flesh for just one lingering little moment before pulling his dress shirt closed over the torn remains of the t-shirt. "Ready to go save the world so we can finish this conversation properly?"

Lois spun out of Clark's arms and began trotting down the stairs. Clark followed close behind, buttoning his shirt as they descended. "Would that be conversation as in talking, or were you referring to the Shakespearean definition?"

Without missing one ever-quickening beat, she answered, "Both."

{End Scene, Back to A-is-for-Action!-plot}

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	6. Act Four: It's the End of the Tunnel

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Act Four: It's the End of the Tunnel on a Broken Track… It's the Ticker on the Bomb that You Can't Turn Back…

Friday, 4:42 p.m.

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On an upper level floor of an office building still under construction, Lois darted across the obstacle course of construction equipment to return to Clark's aid. "Oliver and Chloe are on their way to disable the device," Lois reported, "and we've got less than fifteen minutes to get out of here before the walls come tumbling down." She knelt down on the ground beside Clark, who was writhing in anguish from the Kryptonite bullet that was buried in his shoulder.

Clark groaned in violent agony. "Can't," he grunted. "I won't make it." The words barely made out even as a choked whisper.

Lois started pulling him up off the floor by his good arm. "Come on, tough guy. It's just a shoulder wound. You're not even bleeding that much."

Clark howled in pain before the bullet-ridden shoulder even left the ground. Lois gently lowered him back down immediately. "If you don't get that bullet out of me right now," Clark growled, "it will kill me."

Lois blinked a few times as she sucked in a lungful of air. "Okay. Right. Remove bullet. I can do that." She turned and lunged away from Clark to grab a conveniently located knapsack she'd dropped earlier. After a moment of digging through the contents within its black hole, she extracted a pair of tweezers. "Thank god for social grooming," she muttered sardonically.

She turned back to Clark and began unbuttoning his shit, but he grabbed it with his good hand and tore it open, sending the buttons flying across the room. He still wore the tattered remains of the black t-shirt beneath, but there wasn't much fabric left for her to pull away to expose his wound. Clark continued moaning in agony. "I'm sorry, Clark. This gonna hurt… a lot."

"Just do it," he ground out through clenched teeth.

Lois nodded as she drew in a steadying breath. She began slowly probing the wound with the tweezers; Clark's agonized groans grew louder as she pushed the tweezers in deeper, and when they finally made contact with the deeply buried bullet, he screamed in agony.

"I'm so sorry, Clark." Her eyes were nearly as anguished as his for causing him further pain. His cries of agony continued as she worked the tweezers around the bullet until she felt them get a good grip. She began slowly pulling it out, endlessly repeating her apologies.

Just before the bullet broke through to the surface, a strange fluorescent green glow began to radiate from the wound. "What the…?" Her eyes grew wide as saucers when she finally extracted the glowing bullet. "A meteor rock bullet?"

Clark's pain-filled moans quieted the moment the bullet left his body, but he was obviously still in a great deal of pain. "Get rid of it," he groaned. "Get that thing away from me. Please."

Lois turned and threw the small projectile as hard as she could. It soared across the room and bounced off a far wall. When she turned back to Clark, she gasped in shock as she watched the wound completely heal itself right before her very eyes. "How the hell did you do that?"

"It's a long story," Clark answered as he levered himself into a sitting position.

Her eyes narrowed at Clark's evasive answer. "Why would they shoot you with a bullet made of meteor rock?"

"Because they know that meteor rocks are deadly to me," Clark answered.

Her eyes filled with equal parts confusion and uncertainty. "I've dealt with my share of meteor rock freaks, you know. They may have developed strange super-powers, but I've never seen any of them react like that." She paused to stare at Clark with a critical eye. "So what is it that makes you so different?"

"Like I said, it's a long story." Lois's face contorted in indignation. "I'll tell you everything later, I promise. But right now, we've got to get out of here before this place blows up."

The two stood and made for the exit. "Were you infected by the meteor rocks?" Lois asked as they reached the door.

"No," Clark answered as he opened the door. They began running down the stairwell at break-neck speed. "I wasn't infected with meteor rocks, Lois," Clark told her as they sped down the stairs. "The meteor rocks came from the same place I did. A planet called Krypton. I was sent to Earth just before the planet was destroyed, and a lot of the debris ended up here as well. The powers I have, they come from the radiation of the sun here—the yellow sun. Krypton had a red sun; if I'd lived there, I wouldn't have had any of these powers."

"Wait a minute, Smallville." Lois stopped dead in her tracks. "You're telling me you're from… another planet?"

Clark gave her a small smile, slightly humble, but also a bit teasing. "Yes," he answered simply.

Lois regarded him for a quiet moment. "You're an alien." There was no disbelief in her tone, and not much surprise, either. Only acceptance.

"I prefer interstellar traveler, but… yeah." He slipped one arm behind her and placed his hand at the small of her back, gently urging her to resume their escape. But just before she moved turned away, Clark pulled her up close against his body. "I just hope you can find a way to… how did you put it? 'Dismiss it as an endearing personality quirk.'"

The words sounded familiar, but it took Lois a moment to recall where they were from. When it finally dawned on her, she closed her eyes and let out a somewhat self-deprecating chuckle. "You know, I hate it when you use my own words against me," she told him as she raised her lids. She stretched up and pressed a quick kiss to his lips before extracting herself from his embrace to run down the stairs.

They were only halfway down to the ground floor when they heard a door crash open below them, and an instant later, a hailstorm of gunfire rang out, reverberating through the vertical corridor as bullets whizzed towards them, missing their heads by scant millimeters.

"You have got to be kidding me!" Lois exclaimed as Clark shielded her with his own body. "Don't those morons know their own bomb is about to go off in, like, two minutes?"

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{Cut to Super-Irritating commercial break}

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	7. Act Five: Time's Up

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Act Five: Time's up.

Friday, 4:59 p.m.

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"They must really want to make sure we don't get out alive," Clark answered as a bullet grazed Lois's temple before getting embedded in the wall just behind her head.

"That was close." Lois turned her head in the direction of the bullet with wide eyes; her hand came up to lightly touch the singed trail left by the bullet. "How are we going to get out of here?"

Clark glanced down while the shrouded gunmen continue their assault, and then up to the top of the stairwell. There was a roof access door up there. "Up," he answered. They joined hands and began racing back up the stairs as fast as they could. Bullets continued flying past, and Clark did his best to keep his body between hers and the torrent of bullets.

"Clark, if we don't make it," Lois began as she took the steps two at a time in their furious climb, "I want you to know—"

"We're going to make it," Clark said, cutting her off.

"But if we don't," she tried again, only to be cut off once more by Clark.

"We will."

"Dammit Clark, would you just let me finish?" Lois huffed. "I'm trying to tell you I love you!"

"I know," Clark answered. "I just wish it didn't have to take a near-death experience to drag the words out of you."

"You know I suck at all that touchy-feely-share-your-feelings crap!" Her words were coming more and more haltingly as their desperate ascent took its physical toll.

"Yeah, I know," Clark answered as good-naturedly as the circumstances would allow. "And just for the record, I love you, too."

They had two flights of stairs to go. Just twenty-four steps remained between them and the roof access door when the explosion at the bottom of the stairwell nearly knocked them off their feet. The power of the roaring shockwave ripped through them seconds ahead of the rising fireball that engulfed every inch of the corridor in its path.

"Come on!" Clark screamed over the blast. As they continued their desperate climb, he pulled Lois up in his arms and took the last few steps three at a time. They burst through the door and had just enough time to duck behind a large ventilation port as the flames erupted from the stairwell.

As the fireball tapered back, they rose from behind their shelter and scanned the rooftop. Flames from the floors beneath them were shooting high into the night sky around the entire building; gossamer tendrils of flame curled up around the ledges as if the inferno was cradling the rooftop.

"We're trapped!" Lois's eyes were bulging with fear and panic. Then the entire building began to tremble beneath their feet.

Clark held his hand out to Lois. "Do you trust me?"

She took his hand in hers and stepped closer. "It isn't my trust that's been in question."

The building's trembling intensified with every passing second. "It's time I answered your question, then." As her eyes grew impossibly wider, Clark dipped his head down to capture her lips in a firm kiss. The building suddenly began to quake violently; it was collapsing under them. He wrapped his arms tightly around Lois as he broke off the kiss.

"Hope you're not afraid of heights," Clark quipped with a wink. And then they shot straight up into the air as the roof crumbled beneath, releasing a super-sized fireball that missed them by microseconds.

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{Fade to Black}

{End Season Nine}

{To Be Concluded… In Season Ten!}

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